alexx

Speculators Driving Up Commodity Prices? Hardly

This article and many like it notwithstanding, the commodities futures market is BEING manipulated big time, and it has been going on for the past 4 years...the stream of $20-30 billion which became a $260 billion river owes its great success to the criminal negligence of our CFTC which has refused to enforce our nation's laws for the past few years which requires it to intervene in this fast growing casino and impose 50% and 100% margin requirements so that this manipulating money does not get out of control. As a matter of fact, all that is needed to break this bubble which is ruining millions of people and their jobs from airlines to auto plants, is an immediate directive to CFTC to enforce the law.Please remember there is no shortage of commodities (read the EIA.gov website on supplies in years past and now-no appreciable change...only prices are up 500% since 2002) and the only realistic reason for the commodities spiral is the Leverage in their trading. Take that away, this outrageous 20 to1, 30 to 1 leverage, and the bubbles go "pfttt...)All bubbles broke that way...

'Index Speculators' Responsible For Commodity Prices?

sorry to enter this so late...but most observers miss the simple point about rampant speculation: let's force CFTC to mandate 100% margin requirements for 30 or 90 days, and then we'll see what happens to prices and where the true demand is.The mountain of money (Masters IS CORRECT) that came to the futures pits only came for ONE thing:Leverage. Remove that 30 to 1 leverage with 100% margins and you get a true picture of demand...some of us who have seen these bubbles before still remember the 70's and the 80's for the sugar, coffee, orange juice, copper, silver-Hunts,and many others and they all went POOF when the CFTC enforced its Congress given authority and enforced the law instead of being asleep at the wheel for the last 4 years...

Should Oil Be Trading at $60 or $150?

Good article, but it like many others miss a key point.
If the current Congress leadership demands an immediate inquiry into the negligence and irresponsibility of our own Congress-empowered CFTC, they will find out that it has reigned over the worst commodities bubble in our history and they probably are guilty of criminal negligence in not enforcing the laws that were put in their hands. All that CFTC had to do is to intervene in the futures markets, as the eyepopping leverage has attracted thousands of new players 4-5 years ago, led by the unregulated and unreporting hedge funds, and by mandating 50% and 100% margin requirements they could have burst this bubble in its infancy.(as they were doing in the previous 25 years to sugar, copper, coffee, pork bellies,and even silver in the Hunts 1980 fiasco) But they did NOTHING in the face of doubling,tripling ang even quadrupling of oil futures, nat gas, corn, wheat, everything. Isn't it idiotic that as we all witness the crash-deleveraging of our financial derivatives in the financial markets, one can still bet with impunity in the 16 to 1, 30 to 1 leverage in the futures markets? This, shall we call it an out of control casino, is still benefiting a few at the expense of all of us.Let us all call for an immediate ban on leveraged futures trading, at least for 30-60 days, and we'll all see if there was really any truth to the "demand" for commodities when all players have to put up their cash to play.In the previous 25 years of intervention in unruly markets, NO SPECULATORS stayed in the game when they had been requested to use their money for the game. This game has got to be stopped before it ruins the modrern world as we know it.